How Important Is Bio Media?

[spiff]

Its not right to rip on having too much biomedia though either. Better to have too much. Then you'll have some leeway when adding new fish, something dies and you don't know it, ect.

I can't prove it, but I bet that BB tends to spread itself out evenly over given media..so if you find yourself in a position where the BB needs to have a populatiion explosion to keep up with parameters.. then its better to have more covered media for it to do this on than hope that less media will accumulate a dense enough population to make up the difference.

 

[tcarswell]

Id like to hear more about your AC110 setup NC. I have mine with a sponge on the bottom followed up by purigen then carbon (for aesthetics of the water only) What is the advantage to having the sponge higher?

 

[Jgray152]

Its not right to rip on having too much biomedia though either. Better to have too much. Then you'll have some leeway when adding new fish, something dies and you don't know it, ect.

Problem is, 99.9% of the time when you think you don't have enough, you have TOO MUCH. Ever look at your bio media and see where the bacteria is and all the places they are not?

I can't prove it, but I bet that BB tends to spread itself out evenly over given media..so if you find yourself in a position where the BB needs to have a populatiion explosion to keep up with parameters.. then its better to have more covered media for it to do this on than hope that less media will accumulate a dense enough population to make up the difference.

They have more than enough room most of the time. Most bio filtration setups are WAAAYY over kill. No one listens though. There are only a very few like me, the OP and some others in this thread that understand.

 

[syndicate]

Overkill pfft tell me whats the disadvantage of have extra water volume a to much bio ...

As compared to just enough with a tiny sump that will overflow in a power outage

 

[tcarswell]

Overkill pfft tell me whats the disadvantage of have extra water volume a to much bio ...

As compared to just enough with a tiny sump that will overflow in a power outage

Properly made it would not over flow. And as noted before the extra water volume is obviously an advantage. It almost sounds like your taking this personally.

The disadvantages of having an extra tank (Money) ANd bio media (Money) The OP and everyone here seems to agree that if you don't have to waste the money then don't! I mean that is what we are here to do find the most efficient method of keeping fish in aquaria.

 

[syndicate]

my sumps done properly yet it will over flow if im not home to turn the taps off because i have 40 mm overflows on a 75 with a 20 sumpwith over a acre of surface area hows that for overkill lol the size of the return pump means there not enough space left for the 2 inch of water outta the 75

 

[Toby_H]

I completely disagree with how Hagen suggests you stack the media in them. I put a block sponge on top and on bottom I put quilt stuffing or another sponge or nothing at all… Hagen suggests you put the sponge on bottom which allows a whole list of errors to occur…

i was just curious as to your thinking about this. why do you stack the way you do?

Stacking as Hagen suggests allows excessive bypass… Forces the bulk of the water to enter the sponge on one end of the sponge as opposed to evenly across the entire bottom… Overall, I’ve just had better results this way…


I never criticized large sumps I just said I don’t agree with stuffing the majority of a large sump with “Bio Media”…


I never said anything in opposition to having “more than enough”… Yet I have spent ample time trying to promote education on what “enough” may be… But most people “assume” that you need man many times more than you do, and then you add a little more just to be safe… Which is also fine… But the problem comes in when people start making ignorant (meaning uneducated) suggestions to the new people based on their own assumptions…


Feel free to do whatever you like with your own tank… but when the new guy shows up and asks for advice… don’t guide him based on your own assumptions…


Back to the Aqua Clears… I typically use 1 or two sponges… occasionally use quilt fabric beneath the sponge…

Using this approach I never have bypass around the sponge… and if I neglect cleaning the sponge I get overflow at the intake which is loud and promptly tells me to clean the sponge (which I do). When I’ve used the sponge on bottom, and it got overly clogged, the dirty water just found it’s way around the sponge and back into the tank…

In the past I’ve put fabric between two sponges… this worked quite well for filtering out finer particles, but the fabric clogged up faster than I was happy with dealing with it… So I didn’t use that approach for long.

I don’t personally use charcoal, but if you wish to then I would add it beneath the sponge on the side closer to the impellor… I would do the same with any other such media as well…

I use Magnum HOT or Mag 350s with Micron Cartridge on display tanks to remove finer particles. They are fairly inexpensive and when soaked in a mild bleach mixture overnight even a nasty micron cartridge can turn into ‘like new’.


Keep in mind, I am not asking anyone to remove their “Bio Media”… I’m not asking anyone to change how they filter their tanks… I am only asking that we stop lying to people and telling them then need to take the route of uneducated excess…

 

[Toby_H]

my sumps done properly yet it will over flow if im not home to turn the taps off because i have 40 mm overflows on a 75 with a 20 sumpwith over a acre of surface area hows that for overkill lol the size of the return pump means there not enough space left for the 2 inch of water outta the 75

No offense but...

If, in the event of a power failure when you aren't home... if your sump will overflow...

It's not 'done correctly'... and you should fix that...

 

[tcarswell]

No offense but...

If, in the event of a power failure when you aren't home... if your sump will overflow...

It's not 'done correctly'... and you should fix that...

werd , I dont know how you can say its done properly if it spills on the floor "in normal operation"
Your acre of surface area does not impress me lol I get the point there big guy. I have 0 ammonia 0 nitrite and plenty of surface area in reserve. Not hard to do unless you make it hard on yourself like for instance oversizing a sump and loading it with an acre of surface area and then leaving it unfinished to the point where it overflows if not monitored.

 

[tcarswell]

So NC_nutcase you reccomend running my charcoal and purigen then the foam block ? Just to be clear. Thanks for the tip buddy it seems I get bypass at the sponge now I know why.